From learning machines to learning humans: how cybernetic machine models inspired experimental pedagogies

Modularity, Labor, and Ideology in Edtech Platforms

“…Educators, technologists, and other stakeholders have long advocated for the implementation of computers to improve learning outcomes and innovate educational conditions. Examples are myriad and range from B.F. Skinner's and Sydney Pressey's personalized Teaching Machines in the post-war era (Watters 2021) to Heinz von Foerster's "cybernetic learning machines'' during the counterculture movement (Müggenburg 2020) to recurring policy initiatives of Coding Literacy (Vee 2017) to learning technologies as forms of international development (Ames 2019) and global citizenship (Good 2020). If learning technologies have consistently mediated educational experiences, conversely, advances in hardware and software, mainframe and personal computing, and information and communication networks-projects like Programmed Logic for Automated Teaching Operations (PLATO) (Rankin 2018) or ARPANET, the precursor to today's Internet (Barbrook 2007)-would be inconceivable without research and development in educational settings.…”

Optimization and Subversion

“…D. h. sie wird nur dann wirksam, wenn sie als beobachtete Differenz einen systemischen 2 Zu Foersters Biological Computer Lab an der Universität von Illinois, dem dortigen Einfluss der Gegenkultur und der Fokusverschiebung von maschinellem zu menschlichem Lernen in den 1970er Jahren vgl. auch Müggenburg (2020).…”